Tag Archives: brain research

A wonderfully readable update on brain research is Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide that looks at how our emotions affect decisions and what the brain tells us about it. Lehrer worked in the lab of Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel, is editor-at-large for Seed Magazine, and publishes regularly in major magazines and newspapers. He has both the education to interpret brain research and the ability to write about it clearly — welcome ability. And the results of this research are fascinating.

The brain is constantly growing and changing based on the information it receives, whether that information is emotional, social, or physical. Our “gut” reactions are fast and accurate because our brain has decoded the information faster than we could rationally analyze it. First we know, then we know we know. Unfortunately, our gut feelings are often difficult to explain or even understand and we ignore them, going instead for the response that sounds right.

One of the subjects Lehrer examines is expertise. The reason sociocratic organization works is that it establishes feedback loops that provide information about performance. Malcolm Gladwell has reported that people become proficient when they have worked at something for 10,000 hours. The Beatles were able to outperform other bands at such a young age because as teenagers they had a unique ability to perform frequently. Lehrer’s research shows that isn’t all of the picture. The expertise comes from the feedback received while gaining that experience. The interactions and measurements that come from audience responses and the musician’s experimentation. It isn’t the playing; it’s the recognition of mistakes. Analyzing one’s mistakes improves performance but recognizing mistakes is more likely to happen with an audience.

The sociocratic organizational structure is designed to ensure feedback. Measurement and analysis are fundamental at all levels. Looking at what is working and what is not. Lehrer talks with Bill Robertie who has become a world-class expert not only chess but in poker and backgammon. Unless all that practice includes analysis of his decisions and their result, his play would not have improved. And negative feedback, he says, was the best kind. We learn from our mistakes.

A fascinating study by Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford, looked at the results of praise on children. Half were praised for their intelligence, the other half for their hard work. In later studies, those who had been praised for hard work actually performed better. Those praised for their intelligence were careful to choose easy work in order to retain the view of themselves as intelligent while those praised for working hard, worked harder and chose the harder studies that allowed them learn more. The differences were not just “statistically significant.” Those praised for working harder raised their scores by 30%. The scores for those praised for their intelligence fell by 20%.

Loss aversion fundamentally affects our decision-making in all areas of our lives, and opens us to manipulation by marketers and unreasonable responses to news, to information about the stock market, for example.

Impulsivity is a higher predictor of low SAT scores than academic performance as early as kindergarten. Brain development in children diagnosed with ADHD is on average 3.5 years behind that of other children. Brain research looks at all these phenomenon and studies how one brain functions in the face of the same emotional desires as another, and which one is successful in achieving a satisfactory solution. And the results are unexpected and unpredictable.

The ability to achieve a clean-slate, a brain ready for making new association that lead to new insights, is essential. The insight is achieved in a flash of energy, then the slate is clean again, waiting. Herbert Simon said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Lehrer also reports on studies of satisfaction — one shows that for each hour of increased time commuting, one needs to earn $40,000 more to make the commute worth it.

A striking conclusion is that anyone who wants to make difficult decisions better or more often, needs a more emotional thought process. With education and information, time spent consciously contemplating the alternatives will probably be counter-productive. “The hardest calls are the ones that require the most feeling.”

Research like this has led to a change in how authority is viewed everywhere from the cockpit of major airlines to hospital surgeries. Staffs are trained to question authority when things don’t feel right. Don’t presume that the person with the degree or the title is making the best decision. Decision-making in complex pressure-driven situations is too hard for one brain to sort out.

An excellent and well-written book that is highly recommended. (Yes, this is author whose book “Imagine” was discredited because the author “manipulated and fabricated” quotes by Bob Dylan. To my knowledge none of the quotes were considered uncharacteristic Dylan. This is still a good book.)

Big words in a string — fractals, natural writing systems, topological features — that all melt down to the fact that our writing systems develop out of the forms we know from birth, the world around us. The shapes in the landscape and in our built world are mathematically similar to those in letters. And that means that is neurologically easier for us to learn to read because we are experiencing familiar forms in new combinations, not completely unfamiliar forms. That brings us to fractals and the reason that the circle structure in sociocracy works so well.

Fractals are shapes that are composed of similar shapes, like trees. A tree will grow with all its branches sprouting in the same order, each new branch replicating (more or less) the last one. In the circle structure, each new circle will replicate the structure of its parent.

Like Robert’s Rules of Order, once you have learned the method and applied it at one level of an oganization, it stays the same in every other level. It might be simplified, but the forms are the same. The same four principles are at work. A circle is a circle.

The article that sparked this thought today was in the New Yorker, 28 June 2010, “A Man of Letters” by neurologist Oliver Sacks about how the brain functions in respect to letter forms. Different areas of the brain govern reading letters and others govern writing them. After a stroke a person might be unable to read but may be able to write, or the reverse. To understand words but not speak. Or in many other combinations be able to relate to letters and words differently.

When Howard Engel, who writes the Benny Cooperman detective series, had a stroke, he found himself unable to read but able to write. With much determination, he was able to regain some ability to read by using his body, particularly his tongue to form the letters. Sacks says this redeployment of neurons was facilitated by the fact that “all (natural) writing systems seem to share certain topological features with the environment, features that our brains have evolved to decode.” His fingers and tongue could send the messages to the reading area of his brain in a way that his eyes were no longer able to do.

Mark Changizi and researchers at Caltech did the research on the topology of letters examining hundreds of writing systems including Chinese ideograms. Their computer analysis showed that “all of them, while geometrically very different, share certain basic topological similarities. These same unvarying topological features are found in nature, thus making them recognizable. Before we learn to read, the shapes from which letters are formed pre-exist in our consciousness.

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A Deeper Democracy is a sharing of ideas, research, and commentary on ways each of us can make the democratic ideals of freedom and equality a reality. To make it work for all, to support a fair economy, and to provide equal opportunity.

The ideas are mine, unless noted otherwise, and based on my experience and study of governance, ethics, and social theory. Like comedians privately depressed, I'm a total failure at fitting into organizations. As I was once told by an insightful and too gracious dowager, "Honey, you don't have a homogeneous personality."

So, I'm not an expert, but I'm still looking for the perfect. Or even just the workable. Or perhaps, given personality, this is just the way I have discovered my place in society.